Makerspaces

Makerspaces

Thursday, June 16, 2016

Final Reflection, Full of Pure Reflectiveness

Final Reflection

This was a semi-productive quarter in the Makerspace class. After a whole of empathizing, and knowing what people wanted, I cracked the truth to the hidden problem that was affecting 75% of the school, and which a slight majority of the school considered a problem worth fixing. The problem? Running into people going up or down the secondary stairs.


The problem was clear to me, but the solution wasn't. The root of the problem was clear, with 60% of responses signaling the worse part of the stairs to be when you started walking down them and running into people there, followed by 28% of responses signaling that at the middle of the stairs, when people were using the wrong side of the stairs. Several solutions came to mind. Separating the stairs in half, divided by electrical tape to tell people where they should walk. After discussing this with our instructor (Mr. Koss) we agreed that this was a chance to conduct a social experiment. Mr. Koss told me of a research done that showed how people responded better to visual cue's, and we decided on a solution. We would cut pieces of paper of different color, red and green. (102 to be precise, 51 red and 51 green). In addition to the squares we would construct four large arrows to place at the top, and bottom of the stairs to indicate what way the traffic should flow. Then we would cut transparent contact paper to attach this paper to the stairs, and protect it from wear and tear. 

The process of cutting the paper and contact paper took around a week. After the materials were cut I decided to conduct another experiment to see how many people ran into each other in the stairs. So, between periods 2B, and 3B with the assistance of Jeff's clicker I counted every time someone used the stairs in a wrong matter and how many times people ran into each other. The total number was 22 incidents where they either knocked into someone else or used the wrong side of the stairs. 22 our of a small high school is a high percentage, and gave me first hand knowledge of the extent of this problem. 

After this I proceeded to attach the papers. The papers were attached to signal the path the person had to take. The process took around 3 classes and once completed clearly identified the road that someone using the stairs had to use. Attaching said papers was finished on a Thursday, and by Friday I started noticing changes in the people using the stairs, how they would follow our path. On Monday I proceeded to count the amount of incidents once again. The only difference was I did it after last period, when people were going home. I recorded 13 incidents, which is a clear reduction from the past 22. Nonetheless I believe this number was greater because there was a greater use of the stairs than between periods 2B and 3B. With all this data I can say that my project proved the idea of how people responded to visual cue's, and helped fix an issue which people gave an average of 7/10 of priority.

(because I am writing thsi blog from home, and did not take a picture of the finished project I will add a picture of our grate school, which was made better and safer thanks to the contribution of ths project)


I think about how this project turned out for me. After a very unproductive 3rd quarter, and having Makerpace ruin my first, and probably last chance at straight A's (once again no hard feeling Mr. Koss, just hurt) I feel like this project gave me a purpose, and it was an issue which i was constantly complaining for. The project, when finished gave me a sense of closure, this is a problem I always experienced, and I cant count how many times I ran into little Middle School students while using the stairs. The project also came at quite a tough moment emotionally, and having that to focus on, and seeing how some people were reacting to it, gave a feeling that I was fixing a problem many people encountered. "This is sick, its a very smart solution." - Gumucio 2016,"Very simple way to fix a problem." -Mr. Foege 2016. As I previously stated I judge my project by the two differently timed experiments to see how many people ran into each other while using the stairs, with, and without the visual aides. 

I believe this work shows an important aspect of myself. When I have inspiration, or actually put my mind to something I can complete projects, or carry objectives I place myself. Quarter 3 I didn't see the importance, or the interest to my project on waterproof sprays, but this I could see the impact it had on my community. 

This project took longer than I thought it would, and has space to improve upon itself. The project involved two very long processes, cutting the contact paper, and sticking the paper/contact paper onto the stairs Cutting the contact paper was a very long process that had to be done before even working on the stairs. Contact paper is very hard to work with since it is usually distributed in rolls, the way the paper is folded makes it very hard to cut. We could have instead of using contact paper used clear tape, the type that is used to close boxes, and just stuck the paper and covered it in tape. Another long step was sticking the paper/contact paper on the stairs. To do so one could've either placed the paper down, and then covered it in contact paper, or stuck the paper on the contact paper and then onto the floor. The method that worked best was the latter, seeing as the batch stuck by Mr. Koss and Julie quickly detached withing 24 hours. Nonetheless this problem could have been solved by simply utilize clear tape.

I would have approached this project differently by starting it at an earlier date. Starting it earlier could've given me the chance to try different techniques. Different colors, different cue's, different style of cue's, and if given enough time seen if the cue's could have trained the students to use the stairs the right way, without the need for said cue's. If I could do this project again I would do it on an earlier date, and tried different approaches.

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